The Silence

** spoiler alert ** This was fine. I read a couple of DeLillo books about 12 years ago and was not much of a fan. Now with this new book it felt like the right time to go back. To see what all the fuss is about. And this time around with experience, I don't really see it. I found his work more readable this second time around, and wasn't as taken aback with his more minimalist writing style. Instead I seemed to understand (or think I did) more of what he wanted to do, themes he wants to explore (the role of technology in not only shaping our lives but how that banal technology provides us with lots of useless information we tend to forget, or store). But as I continued reading I seemed to remember all the things I didn't like. The minimalist writing, the tendency to list the minutiae of everyday life, in this particular case of a catastrophe that seemed to take away the one thing that so many people's lives are built around. But I plan to read more of his work so maybe my opinion will change and I will find his other books better.

I read this book on one go. I bought it on pre-sale, excited about the summary and what would it feel to read it during lockdown. The book captures all the anxieties that many of us have had during lockdown and puts something even worst on top of it all: a digital blackdown. As a I was reading the book I was imagining what life would it be without Internet and my laptop - phone - kindle, I realized I could not live at all. I'm working from home, hence I would not be able to earn a salary and I on top of that, I would not be able to stay in touch with my family abroad. The book progressed and I was stuck to the opening phrase: “I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” The Silence was an intense reading, in which I felt we were given our normality back (the book delves around Super Bowl 2022 night) just to lose it all again. Great reading if you ask me, got me thinking and pondering about what will happen after lockdown.

Quick and easy read of what seems to be streams of consciousness flowing on the pages. Similar style to White Noise

DeLillo está com 83 anos, o seu último livro saiu há 4 anos, e o anterior há 10. Não se pode dizer que esteja com grande vontade de escrever, ou então de publicar. Digo isto pela dimensão reduzidíssima do livro, que é um conto, não uma novela. Como tal, sai fora do que mais gosto de ler e analisar. As histórias curtas são sempre demasiado curtas para compreender aonde se quer ir e por que meios se pretende lá chegar. Este livro é um clássico exemplo desse problema. DeLillo lança uma premissa instigadora — se a tecnologia de que dependemos (ex. eletricidade, aviões, computadores, telefones, etc.) deixasse de funcionar de um momento para o outro — porque nos coloca de frente a algo que tomamos cada vez mais como adquirido, como parte do que somos. Contudo, a premissa apresenta pouco ou nada de novo, por isso sem desenvolvimento sabe a pouco. Claro que o texto tem a marca estilística de DeLillo e acaba sendo um prazer ler, mas chega-se ao fim e não se acredita que terminou. DeLillo lança algumas questões filosóficas sobre as razões para esse momento apocalíptico, usa e abusa da figura de Einstein, não se deixa seduzir pelos clichés apocalípticos do costume, de destruição e delírio, mas ao deixá-los de fora torna o momento completamente irrealista. Basta imaginar a nuvem densa de aviões que circulam nos ares da Europa ou EUA ao longo do dia, e o que aconteceria se todos aqueles aparelhos se desligassem ao mesmo tempo, como tanta outra coisa, desde barragens que controlam caudais a centrais nucleares, passando por hospitais, laboratórios, fábricas e prisões e o que dizer de todas as estruturas de transporte que garantem a reposição diária de estoques nas grande superfícies. Eu sei que não era disso que ele nos queria falar, mas não se pode fazer um recorte do que nos apetece e depois esperar que se leia como leitura de uma realidade completa. Por fim, ajuda lançar um texto destes em plena pandemia, torna-o apetecível e isso vê-se na miríade de boas críticas que a imprensa internacional lhe tem dedicado.

I don’t know what I expected going into this but it wasn’t this. The plot had me interested as power and internet have gone out. Your living in the world without them. How would you cope? What would you do? It intrigued me when I first read the synopsis, but the story was just meh for me and kinda all over the board. You follow a group of people in the apartment and what there doing after everything goes off. That’s it. Maybe I’m missing the deeper meaning in this book, but it’s just not for me.

'Speech by character in a late DeLillo novella' is its own dialect of English. His Point Omega means a great deal to me. This doesn't quite get there, and I think it's because it has too many characters without enough time for any of them. But there are great moments, and it's DeLillo so you're going to read it no matter what I say. And you should. I'll reread it, likely. Don't miss Joshua Cohen's review in the Times.

Fine

cool, absolutely nothing happened

The only DeLillo I've read, which seems likes a mistake. It wasn't all bad, and I think the unnerving staccato writing style was on purpose given the subject matter, but the story was just too clipped. I love idea, but I want a fuller exploration of it.

I absolutely adored White Noise and some of the other early DeLillo, but everything I've read since seemed critically overrated and pretentious. Thought I'd give this one a try. Starts strongly with a couple on a plane, interesting characters, some oblique observations. The remainder is increasingly tiresome with the introduction of other cipher-like characters, and incoherent dystopian tech-jargon strewn monologues orated across one another. Zeitgeisty, in that it was finished weeks before the pandemic, but for me at least, just satirical contemporary commentary which is not as clever or as interesting as it thinks it is. Might've worked as a short story.